Honestly man I would put them on the car and sit the car to what ever height give you atleast 2" of travel at ride height. Theirs really no way for any of us to give you a exact number unless we have all the measurments and even then its still just a guess. Your best bet is to put them on the car and go from there. 99.9% of us would feel really bad if we said "yea man set them at this height" and then 2 weeks later you come back and post "well I bottomed out my shocks and now they're leaking."

 

I just don't want to be responsible for telling you to cut them and then you end up slamming your damper into them.

 

Seems like most people run cut stops without issues though right? Do they still protect the shock? I won't be blaming anyone, just looking for advice. I didn't know 2" travel is a good number, is that what most people run at low heights? I'll have my installer check the travel and make sure it's safe.

 

legend, just for reference, I ran 800 springs in rear last year and no rear sway, with everything on the ground i only had 1" of travel left on a 1" bump stop with ground control top hats. i had no problems and even at that little travel i barely got into the stops

 

I bottomed out with 1.77" of travel and ruined 2 shocks. Although I wasn't running much compression because it was at a race in the rain. I'd say 2" minimum. I probably have atleast 3" of travel on my custom set-up. Granted my bodys are probley atleast 1.25" shorter then yours. I don't see you getting under 13" fender to hub center without custom shock bodies but the only way to find out is to have them on the car and measure.

We honestly can't give you any answers regarding how low you can go without seeing it how much travel you have at ride height. Theirs to many variables.

Heres a crappy pic from my phone of my shock travel at 12.5"

The shock body with go into the helper spring perch and I'm guessing it has about 3" of total travel. I'm going to take a wheel off this weekend and see where my o rings are on the shocks and I'll update my build thread with how much travel I have exactly and how much I'm using. Granted this is a custom built shock with custom bodies. Not something you can just buy off the shelf. Asking for a OTS shock that will allow you to run this low is asking for alot.

 

Thanks Robert, and Josh, that's helpful. Josh were you running a bump stop?

 

Yes I have bump stops but they ar just to pretect from bottoming out the shock. The are very tiny and fit inside the upper spring perch. I just looked on my photobucket and had this pic so I used paint to try to point them out to you.

Please note my spring perch is actually .6" above where it is in this picture once we put them on the car. This is just a picture from when I recieve them from the shock builder.




My bump stops are just to save the shock in a instance of bottoming it out. They are not being used as part of the damping system as you've seen on other shocks. (reference the videos marc88 posted where the bump stops are being used as part of the damping system) Hope this helps. Sorry we can't help you but none of use want to be the guy to say yea you can do that then a week later you ruin a shock or two.

 

So even though you were running a small bump stop to protect the shock from bottoming out, it didn't work and your shock was damaged anyway?

 

I personally would rather take the approach of running a slightly taller more progressive bumpstop with half of the length being reasonably soft. I'd rather get a little into a soft bumpstop than have the shocks slam down on a really short really stiff bumpstop. That being said I still think you can trim most of them a little bit and be just fine.

Like others have said it'll be a little different for everyone. Driving style will probably play into it a tad too. Someone that's smoother will probably get into stops less or not at all compared to someone that's really aggressive. There are so many variables it's really hard to tell what will work on paper.

 

Before the rebuilt the shocked didn't have bump stops on them at all. My goal is to have the shock body/shaft the right size for my ride height to not have to worry about bottoming out at all. If it did happen I have my small bumpstops to try and save the shock if I can. I plan to never hit the bump stop at all. I've driven the car on the streets for the lat 2 weeks and have hit a couple pretty big dips in the road on purpose so that when I look at the o rings this week I'll have a really good idea of the max amount of travel my shocks will ever see.


Granted I know nothing and claim to know nothing. Take anything I say as just some random guys .02 cents. Let the pros give you the solid answers. They know alot more then I do.



My only advise is make sure you have ATLEAST 2" of travel if not more or you risk bottoming out the shock on a large bump.